Breastfeeding While Black Can Be An Isolating Experience

Sakia’Lynn Johnson was cautiously optimistic. Last year, as one of two African American international board certified lactation consultants in Florida, she had been asked to lead an African American special interest group for the first time in the history of the International Lactation Consultants Association’s annual conference. It is the largest gathering of lactation consultants in the world.

Never mind that she was asked one month prior, when these conferences are likely planned a year in advance, and never mind that the time–7 a.m.–was not exactly primetime. But even in the small room that was assigned to the meet-up Johnson envisioned a sea of black and brown lactation consultants certified by the organization, the ones she hoped existed even though she had only met a handful in her decade-long career.

About 23 people showed up.

Only six were African American. Including Johnson herself.

The situation wasn’t what she had hoped, but it was what she’d actually been expecting.

In fact, nobody seems to know how many African American international board certified lactation consultants (IBCLCs) there are in the United States. The membership association doesn’t compile that information and the registering body (International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners) failed to reply to multiple requests for an interview for this column.

Here’s what I do know. As I traveled the country, asking everyone if they knew of any African American IBCLCs, this story took less journalistic routes and more grapevine and Underground Railroad-like pathways. There were stories and urban legends of black IBCLCs. At one point, I wondered if I was searching for black IBCLCs or Big Foot.

Terry Jo Curtis is founder of the Indiana Black Breastfeeding Coalition. She is an IBCLC and knew of two others in her state and she is mentoring others. There are two in the state of Michigan. The Alabama Breastfeeding Coalition members knew of two in Alabama. There were rumors of another but no one could confirm that she was indeed an IBCLC as opposed to a lactation consultant. Florida has two. And in New York City there are two.

Severe Diversity Problem

This is exactly as I have observed for the past five years: The lactation consultant industry, as represented by the membership of the International Lactation Consultants Association, has a severe diversity problem–and not much is being done about it. When the association convened the last week of July for its annual convention, I, too, was cautiously optimistic that developing meaningful ways to become culturally diverse would top its agenda. But given that this year’s African American special interest group meeting was relegated to pre-conference status, I remain suspect of its priority status.

“We realize it’s a big issue. And we really don’t have much in place,” admits Cathy Carothers, outgoing president of the association and incoming chair of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee. Carothers said this year’s board meeting agenda included talking about the association’s role to fulfill point No. 11 in the Surgeon General’s Call to Action on Breastfeeding, which specifically involves “creating opportunities to prepare and train more IBCLCs from racial and ethnic minority groups that are currently not well represented in this profession.”

But Carothers couldn’t answer why action steps weren’t created at last year’s annual meeting given that the Call to Action was released with much momentum in January of 2011 and their meeting was in July and since their lack of black and brown membership spans even longer. Did the Surgeon General really have to tell you?

Meanwhile, Johnson says she wishes she had a dollar for every time she attends an association gathering and someone assumes that she is a peer counselor for WIC (the federal nutrition program for low-income Women, Infants and Children) instead of the board certified lactation consultant that she is.

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